Not that kind of bored

Inspired by this brilliant picture and wee post over at the Panic Inc. blog I’ve not been able to shake the idea of making a similar status view for us to use when designing Ubuntu and related products. We’re always looking to enhance our processes and what I really like the idea of is creating a board that allows us to show the business not only what we’re working on but also keeps people working on different projects within the team to see what’s happening. This process is all a bit Apple at Xerox PARC. Panic don’t say exactly what their board is showing so I am taking what I think they’ve done there and think relates and am making up the rest. There’s every chance that their bored is very simple. I’ll post up more as I work on my project which I’m currently referring to as Bored on the grounds that I hope it will help keep people focussed in those moments when they stop and look up – or might be a bit bored, and because I’m working on it in my downtime.

I will also be open sourcing my terrible terrible code and designs such as they will be. Here’s some tantilising drawings I’ve done so far.

So where am I now? Well I stayed up late drawing those AMAZING pictures and have come up with the following next steps:

1. Draw up these mock ups and potential flow and interactions in a tidier way.
2. User test with some friends at work and in other places. Am I providing information that they would find useful?
3. Update in line with those findings.
4. Become an opportunistic developer.
5. Show to wowed colleagues and get some help making it work nicely and easier to update.

I’ll also keep an eye on this project on Git as they seem to be creating at least a front end. I don’t think I’ll want to use their code but I might borrow their structure as that’s the bit I know least about I’ll also keep an eye on Panic as they clearly have had a massive response and more talented hands than mine are probably already hammering away at something.

More as we have it!